CARPENTER BIRDS 9 



demned to spend their lives crawling on the trunks of 

 trees, toiling for the meanest fare, unable to join in 

 the gaieties of other creatures, and without even a 

 change of diet, or a palate sensitive enough to 

 appreciate the delicacies of life. All this commisera- 

 tion was quite unnecessary. The woodpeckers have 

 what is generally known as " a good time." Nor is 

 it the case that they only live on the grubs which they 

 bore out of rotten wood or extract from the crevices 

 of the bark. 



Looking at the fine contrasts of black, white, 

 crimson, or green on their plumage, it might be 

 guessed that our woodpeckers have some affinities 

 with birds of less northern range. The fact is that 

 not only are there a great number of species in 

 Northern and Tropical America, but that they are 

 also numerous in North Africa, India, and as far south 

 as the Celebes, where the " Wallace line " cuts them 

 off from the Australian region. In both Central and 

 Southern America, and in most tropical countries 

 except Australia, they have for first cousins those 

 curious, ungainly birds, with oversized heads and 

 beaks, called barbets. These are mainly fruit-eaters, 

 though some feed on insects, which they take on the 

 wing, as some of the insect-feeding kingfishers also 

 do. The barbets bore a hole in a tree to lay their 

 eggs in, and these are white like the woodpeckers'. 

 So far are the latter, even those of England, from 

 being confined entirely to a life of hard labour and 

 incessant tree-climbing, that they all show a liking for 

 fruit-eating, with which they are not always credited. 



